MERIDIAN, Idaho — Family Christian Center, a suburban church with stagnating attendance, decided to try a bold campaign to attract new members. They launched a mysterious “Find Me at Family” publicity push, buying billboards around town that advertise only the web address “findmeatfamily.org” in simple font.

The campaign was meant to gin up interest in the church, but they failed to notice that “findmeatfamily” can also be read “find meat family.” Which is exactly what most people in the community thought it meant.

“My kids saw the billboards and said, ‘Meat family! Mom, are we a meat family?’” says Anna Baldwin, a hairdresser and mother who thought it was a new promotion by the Beef Council. “I thought it was a disgusting way to advertise beef.”

Skateboarder Derek Banks says he thought the billboards were for a new zombie movie and was “really excited until I went to the website and saw it was just a church thing.” The disappointed 15-year-old and his friends grabbed a handful of “findmeatfamily.org” bumper stickers from the church and slapped them on light poles around town “just for fun. I like the idea of a meat family. It’s got zombie-riffic possibilities.”

Other residents thought the billboards signaled the rise of an aggressive vegetarian movement, and were a little frightened.

“I thought, ‘Oh boy. A new group that’s out to get people who eat meat,’” says one retired woman. “These days I wouldn’t doubt it. So Roger and I kept the guns out.”

The church is responding by altering the billboards so the words “find me at family” are distinguished by different colors. Their web designer suggested adding the tagline “a church without zombies,” but the idea was quickly nixed.

“Given what we’ve been through with the ‘meat family’ incident, we don’t want any more bizarre factors,” says associate pastor Bob Parker who favored a more traditional campaign from the start. “We should have just gone with an ad in the newspaper promoting next week’s sermon.” •